Battling body image and eating disorders

A CANADIAN pocket rocket came into my life at the start of this year and I am so grateful for it!

I can tell you wholeheartedly that this woman is changing my life, along with many others, and to be brutally honest not enough people know about her.

I’d like you to meet Dr Kat. She is a gorgeous, petite, funny, intelligent woman who has a really important message to share.

Dr Kat is a body confidence expert and she is helping women all over the country by speaking out about her life and sharing the battles she has personally had with several eating disorders.

She has had a complicated relationship with food and spent many years partaking in fad exercise and diet trends, which have resulted in long-term damage to her health.

She has now achieved a happy balance, mostly due to her extensive education in body sciences, and seeks to impart the fundamental things she has learnt about the inseparable relationship between health, happiness and body confidence through her developed course ‘The Forever Approach.’

I did Dr Kat’s course earlier this year and I promise, it changes you! I got so much out of it and I am so grateful for all she has given me.

My relationship with food has been up and down since I was young – believe me when I tell you I have tried every single diet and trick in the book.

I was always a healthy kid according to my Mum but in my first year of high school, I began emotional eating. Now, after years of therapy, I know that most of my weight issues arise from my self-esteem and boys.

Body confidence expert Dr Kat

Dr Kat’s course is extremely personal and can be very emotional but she speaks from the heart and that’s what I adore about her.

There is no bullshit and she has many stories to share with you along the way.

The help she has offered me and the friendship she builds with her clients is why more of you need to know her. So, I interviewed Dr Kat on the latest episode of my shiny new podcast “Real Heidi, Real People, Real Stories.”

We get pretty deep and she reveals some crazy truths about her obsession with food, and the extent of her eating disorders.

Dr Kat’s earliest memory with food was when she was just four years old and in this interview, she opens up about her obsessive relationship with it.

It sounds as though food is all she thought about growing up! If she wasn’t in the kitchen making meals, she was watching cooking shows.

Today, Dr Kat’s relationship with food is a healthy one and in her own words, she is a “survivor.” Her demons haven’t disappeared, she just knows how to work with them and live a happy and healthy life.

Yes, she still has her bad days but these disorders don’t control her anymore.

After years of therapy and peeling back the layers, she believes a pivotal moment for her and the beginning of the control was her parents’ divorce when she was just eight years of age.

“The day my parents announced their divorce, I could describe to you vividly, it was very impactful,” she said.

Throughout the podcast, you’ll hear her raw, real and honest story, and I believe anyone who has ever been affected by an eating disorder will relate to her journey.

Growing up, Dr Kat was desperate to fit in and be popular.

“If you could not eat and pass out, this was considered the ultimate popular thing to do,” she said.

“I remember hearing a girl having to go home from passing out, I was so jealous.”

“This is when I was under a great divide. I loved and adored food but wanted to be skinny, cool and fit in.”

This is a real issue with both young men and women with 1 in 24 people in Australia suffering from an eating disorder.

Of these people, 47 per cent have a binge eating disorder, 12 per cent suffer bulimia nervosa, 3 per cent anorexia nervosa and 38 per cent have other eating disorders.

Women make up about 64 per cent of these cases according to The Butterfly Foundation.

Dr Kat’s obsession with food and being skinny stayed with her throughout her teens and well into her thirties. It was only recently that she had the ‘light bulb moment’ and she built ‘The Forever Approach,’ which I highly recommend you getting around if you’ve suffered from any body image issue.

As I said, Dr Kat is someone you need to know. She doesn’t sugar coat anything and she has looked at the bottom of the barrel not once, but three times throughout her life.

This woman is a survivor and I’d love for you to meet her and hear her story in full. To download the podcast, head to iTunes ‘Real Heidi, Real People, Real Stories’ or head to my website www.realheidi.com/podcast